Posts Tagged ‘courtship’

Today, I found a “freshly pressed” poste that had very narrow-minded and one-sided, not to say sexist, take on men and how they should approach women. This post was followed by a number of equally narrow-minded comments (and a few more intelligent). Having seen the same self-absorbed prejudices on a great number of occasions, I left the following (apparently censored due to dissent) comment:

You seem to make the major mistake of confusing what works (does not work) with what is graceful/appropriate/whatnot (graceless/inappropriate/…)

Asking directly for a number may not work, but there is nothing inherently wrong with doing so. On the contrary, simply asking is direct and honest. Notably, what the asker actually wants is usually clear from context and any actual claims made are likely to just be excuses or steps on the road to the goal.

Several commenters discuss signals and hints. What most women fail to understand is that:

1. Men prefer and expect direct communication over hints and it is wrong for women to blame this incompatibility on men. They are themselves just as guilty—indeed, arguably more so, because direct communication is inherently more efficient. (Note the similarity to the earlier parts of my comment.)

2. Not every woman uses the same signals to imply a particular meaning. There is no infallible universal language to stick to, and if a man fails to correctly interpret the signals of one particular woman, it is occasionally because he is used to another “dialect” (for want of a better word).